A Mermaid's Guardian
by LoneWolfTifa
Summary: With the arrival of two mysterious girls, a serial killer is unleashed, ruthlessly killing anyone. Meanwhile, a mysterious force from worlds beyond challenges Rikki, Cleo, and Bella, but are they here for them, or are they here to prevent a Crisis?
1. Prologue

_I'm home… It's been like what, three years?_

_Well, it's no Destiny Academy, but I've always wanted to go to Australia…_

_I just hope Bella and the others don't cause any trouble back at Astralis Caelum…_

_Terra and I already have enough to deal with and now this?_

_Great, just great._

* * *

"Oh. My. God. I swear, I will never take another one of those exams ever again," Rikki groaned as she walked along a beach with Cleo and Bella, her two best friends and in secret, fellow mermaids. They were all carrying their schoolbags and were on their way back home The sky was a bright blue and without a cloud in sight. In short, it was a perfect day for a swim. Unfortunately…

"Well, you're out of luck there," Bella smiled at the short-tempered blonde, "We've still got two days of them." Rikki never liked school and was the kind of person who would just skip a day just to go to Mako island, but she wouldn't without Bella and Cleo coming with her.

"Just two more days?" Cleo repeated. She sighed. "Feels like its going to take another two years til we get done… If only Lewis was here…" Lewis, her boyfriend and researcher, had left for America a few weeks before, but Cleo was always thinking of him. "You know what? Come over to my house. We'll study there."

Rikki groaned even louder. "I don't want to study anymore…" She gazed at the pristine, blue water with longing. It was practically calling out to her to go for a swim.

"I know, I know…" Cleo said sympathetically, "But if we want to graduate, we're gonna have to."

"I'm with Rikki on this one," Bella replied, "We've been studying our butts off for a week and-"

"He-ey…." A tall, brown haired guy, a surfer, approached the trio. "Would you ladies like to join me and my buds for a swim?" He pointed to where his friends were, who were all grinning and laughing at him. All of them were buff and pretty hot, but…

"Sorry," Cleo smiled sweetly at the guy, who looked extremely disappointed, "We have to go and study…" She tried to walk around him, but he quickly blocked her path.

"C'mon… There's no need to be shy. Forget studying and-"

"Sorry, I can't," Cleo said again, this time a little forcefully. She turned around and motioned Rikki and Bella to walk back towards where they came from, but just as they started to walk off, the guy grabbed Cleo's shoulder and roughly spun her around. "Don't you dare turn your back to me!" he snarled, his face melting from the smiling face to a mask of anger.

"Ow!" Cleo tried to shake off his grip. "Let go!"

"Hey!" Rikki whirled around, "Get your hands off her!" she said angrily. The guy just laughed. "Like I'm really gonna-"

"Is there a problem here?" A new, wolfish-sounding voice asked from right behind him.

The guy let go of Cleo's shoulder and turned around. "None of your-" He stopped and his jaw dropped, while the girls behind him stared at the speaker.

Two girls stood before them. Two incredibly beautiful girls. One of them, the speaker, was as tall as he was and had shoulder length black hair and wore a plain blue T-shirt and tan cargo pants, complete with a silver wolf chain necklace dangling from her neck. For a girl, she was quite muscular and looked like she had been through some sort of war, but the most unsettling thing about her was her eyes: unlike most Asians, who had dark brown eyes, she had bright blue eyes that seemed like they could see right through a person's soul. There was also something else in them though… Sadness. Rage. _But there's something else about her… _Cleo thought. _I can tell she's been through a lot though._ The girl looked like she didn't smile often, as there was a small frown on her lightly tanned face.

In contrast, the other girl next to her had long somewhat wavy blonde hair and had emerald green eyes, but they were just as piercing as the other girl's. Unlike the blue-eyed girl, she wore a white tank-top with dark green shorts. She tilted her head slightly as she surveyed the surfer without much interest, allowing Cleo to see that the girl was also wearing white rose earring studs. Like her friend, she was lightly tanned, but her face was showed no emotion.

Cleo shivered. Something wasn't right about the pair, After all, they seemed to have just popped out of nowhere… The black-haired girl was already intimidating enough, but the blonde was downright scary.

"I said," the wolfish voice belonged to the blue-eyed girl, "is there a problem here?"

The surfer shook his head as if coming out of a reverie. "N-No…" He hastily took a step backwards, stepping on Rikki's foot.

"Ow!" Rikki hissed, "Je-"

"Shh!" Bella whispered warningly. The blue-eyed girl took a step forward.

"I really do hate liars…" she whispered in a deadly tone, "I'm going to give you three seconds to run. O-"

Without another word, the surfer sprinted off to where his friends were, who roared with laughter at the sight of their friend running away from the girls.

The blue-eyed girl grinned at the sight, "Wow. That didn't take long. I didn't even get to one!" She turned back around to the Cleo. "You okay?"

"W-What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine…" she replied in a small voice.

"Ahh… Sorry if I scared you," The girl said apologetically, "I just saw that jerk bothering you, so I decided to step in."

"Oh, we weren't scared," Rikki butted in.

The girl raised an eyebrow. "Really? 'Cause it looked like to me that you guys wanted to run."

"… Okay, we were a little," she admitted, looking slightly embarrassed.

Bella stepped forward. "Who are you guys anyway?"

"Ah! Should have told you guys earlier…" The girl stuck out her hand, "Call me Tifa."

Bella stifled a gasp. A thin, but long scar extended from Tifa's elbow to her wrist. It stood out like a danger sign.

Tifa saw her staring at it. "Yeah… I got that a few years ago. It's nothing really." She quickly withdrew her arm, however.

_Nothing?_ Cleo couldn't believe that. _A scar that big isn't "nothing"._

"She got that in an ice skating accident," The blonde girl finally spoke up, her green eyes now surveying the three. Her voice was somber, unlike Tifa's.

"Yeah, but it really isn't that bad," Tifa tried to reassure Bella. She didn't look convinced.

"If you say so…" She turned her attention Tifa's friend. "What's your name?"

The girl took a step forward, her green eyes now focused on Bella. "… My name is Terra."


	2. Chapter 1: Fateful Meeting

_I shouldn't have showed her my arm… _The girl with the long blonde hair was now staring at me in a weird way, and the other two were looking concerned. _Like I can actually tell them what really happened… I got slashed while fighting a demon in a battle in a world that almost no one knows about? They won't believe that and they'll think I'm crazy._

"She got that in an ice skating accident," I heard Terra say in a somber tone. That tone was also her say-something-before-this-gets-awkward voice.

"Yeah," I said quickly, but it really isn't that bad." I put on a happy face, or as happy I could get it to be. She didn't look convinced at all. _Crap._

"If you say so…" She still looked worried, but at least she turned her attention to Terra. "What's your name?"

"My name is Terra," she said politely, her green eyes locked on the girl's deep blue ones. The girl suddenly took a step back as a look of fear flitted across her face. Terra had a habit of scaring people with her eyes, but I was one of the few that she didn't scare. "What's yours?" she asked, acting if nothing had happened. She was used to people backing off when they met her gaze.

The blonde started to say something, but the brown haired girl on her right spoke up. "I'm Cleo. This is Rikki," The girl with the curly blonde hair behind her smiled and gave a little wave. "And this is Bella," Cleo finished. The other blonde smiled too, but she still looked scared of Terra.

"Nice to meet you guys," I returned the smile in kind. They seemed to be friendly, but there was some kind of magic surrounding them. _Are they the ones? The ones we're supposed to protect?_ I could feel two of the three types of magic emanating from them: Cleo and Bella had _Decritia_, the beneficial, yet powerful kind of magic that could be used for anything, like the kind Renée had, but Rikki… _She's dangerous._ She was practically radiating _Ferena_, the wild, unpredictable magic that came from a person's emotions. Used in the right way, it was most often used in wars, but if a person who had couldn't control it, it could cause mass destruction and chaos. I also had Ferena, but I was properly trained, unlike her. _And she seems like the short fuse type… Not good. At least none of them have_ _Atreriga_… That was the most dangerous type of the three since only the Entities, demons, and a select few humans possessed the power to use it. I remembered Amaterasu telling me about the last time a Entity unleashed it upon Earth: it caused what people called the Mariana Trench to sink below the Pacific.

"Are you new around here?" Cleo asked, jerking me out of my reverie, "You don't seem to have an accent."

"Yeah. We're from the States," I replied, "From Georgia. Just got out of university with Terra." I hated lying to people, but sometimes it was absolutely necessary…

"Really?" Bella asked interestedly, "That's pretty cool."

_No. We never went to university. Instead, we spent three years fighting demons and a God and learning about a world far beyond this one. Oh, and I'm not really supposed to be 24. I'm really 16, but Amaterasu aged the fifteen of us so we could be Guardians._ "Eh, it wasn't that great," I shrugged, "To tell you the truth."

"We're still looking around here for some interesting places," Terra chimed in, "Can you tell us any?"

"There's my cafe!" Rikki finally spoke up. Until now, she had been looking at us suspiciously. _Do we really look like we don't fit in? Maybe it's because of our eyes… I mean, I was pretty freaked out when my eyes suddenly changed from brown to blue._ "It's one of the best places around here to hang out with friends, and we have a live band every now and then. Bella's the singer."

Bella blushed. "Really?" I smiled, "We'll stop by there sometime. Anywhere else? Any islands worth exploring?"

The atmosphere suddenly filled with tension. Bella's and Rikki's smiles vanished and looked kinda frightened. "Well, there's Mako Island, but I wouldn't really go there if I were you." Cleo said reluctantly.

"Why not?" I asked, startled by the sudden change in mood. _They're hiding something. They don't want us to go out there…_

"Well, there's all sorts of wild animals wandering all over the place, so no one really goes there, unless you want to go camping, but I seriously wouldn't go."

_Huh. I've faced dragons, demons, giant two-headed snakes, and a giant, evil-looking bunny. I'm pretty sure I can handle a couple of normal, nonmagical, wild animals._ "Terra and I are the danger-seeking type, so I'm pretty sure we'll be alright," I replied casually, "I mean, I didn't get this scar from just sitting around." I rolled up my T-shirt sleeve up to my shoulder, showing them another scar similar to the one on my forearm. They stared at it as if they didn't know if they should be worried for me or excited. "I got this one from fencing with real swords without having the suit on," I lied again. _They're lying to us, so I don't see why I can't lie to them either._ I got that particular scar during training with the Valkyrie Brynhildr, who didn't give a crap about how beat up her sparring partner was afterward.

"You really like to do some pretty dangerous things…" Rikki said a little sarcastically after a second of silence.

"Yeah, I guess."

Terra elbowed me. "What?" I asked her softly. It wasn't like her to do that.

She looked troubled, which meant that something was very wrong. Unlike most people, she was very good at hiding her emotions. Back at the Academy, most people thought she was emo, even though she definitely wasn't. "We should go," she murmured softly so that the three girls couldn't hear, "There's something out there…" Her head turned to the sea, staring at the horizon.

"Something wrong?" Bella asked. She looked really concerned, but her scared look was back.

Terra shook out of her reverie, "Oh nothing. I just realized we're late to our fencing class, right, Tifa?" She gave me her go-along-with-it glare.

"Right!" I smiled a fake smile, "Nice meeting you guys. We'll stop by your café sometime."

"Bye," they chorused, smiling, "See you around." They turned around and walked back where they were coming from.

Once they were out of earshot, I turned to Terra. "Nice one,"

"Thanks, but we have to get out there," she turned her attention back to the sea, "I'm sensing a lot of magic coming from something out there."

"What kind?"

"All three," She tore her gaze from the sea again, "And those girls had _Decritia_ and _Ferena_ around them. They know something about wherever the magic's coming from."

_Crap. If they have magic and they somehow know how to use it, this could get pretty nasty._ "You don't think it's at that island they were talking about..? They were pretty reluctant sounding when we asked about it."

"All the more reason to go," She smiled grimly, "We have find and protect it from anyone else and we have to find out how much those girls know."


	3. Chapter 2: A Killer Phone Call

"Don't you think those girls, were, well, strange?" Rikki asked as the girls walked up a street. Cleo's house was just a block away. She had a frown on her face, a sure sign that something was bothering her.

"A little," Cleo admitted, "I didn't even see them coming or even hear them until Tifa said something, but I'm just glad they scared that guy off for us and it didn't turn nasty." _But Rikki's right. They are pretty strange. _"But that blonde one, Terra was her name right?" Rikki nodded. "She was really scary…" Cleo finished, giving a little shudder.

"Both of them were pretty scary," Bella replied, she looked slightly unperturbed, "Didn't you see their eyes?"

"No, we didn't see them because we're blind," Rikki rolled her eyes, " 'Course we did!"

"I'm serious, Rikki," Bella looked annoyed at her sarcasm, "Their eyes… It made them look like they weren't even human…"

"Yeah, that was the main reason why they were so scary looking, besides Tifa's scars," Cleo chimed in, "But enough chitchat. We need to study for the rest of our exams."

Rikki groaned. "Don't remind me…"

* * *

"I'm home!" Cleo called out as she opened the front door of her house, walked in, and dropped her schoolbag onto the floor. Rikki and Bella followed her in. "Rikki and Bella are here too."

Her father, who was sitting on the couch and watching TV, quickly got up. "I'm so glad you girls are here!" He sounded distressed as he pointed to the TV, where the news was on, "Look!"

"What's wrong, Dad?" Cleo asked. She sounded worried. Her dad usually wasn't like this...

He shook his head. "Don't ask. Just watch and listen!"

The trio turned their attention to the TV, completely bewildered. The news was flashing BREAKING NEWS, showing police carrying a sheet-covered body out of a courthouse. _… The body of Justice Jill King was just found this morning at the Southport Courthouse… This is now the 3rd killing in a mere two weeks… Police now believe that this is the work of the so-called Justice Killer, who-_

Bella looked away from the TV, looking sickened. "Could you...Could you turn it off, please?"

"Of course," Cleo said quickly. She walked over, picked up the remote from the coffee table, and switched off the TV with it. "You okay?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?" Rikki asked Bella. For once, she actually looked worried. "You don't look so good."

"I'm fine…" Bella said reluctantly, "I just don't like watching the news when they say someone got killed."

"Who doesn't?" Cleo murmured softly, "Especially now…" _I can't believe there's a serial killer out there somewhere… It's always been safe here, but now… _

"Who is this 'Justice Killer' anyway?" Rikki asked Cleo, "I never heard of it until now."

Cleo started to say something, but her dad spoke first. "The Justice Killer just appeared recently," he said worriedly, "They already found two people killed by him, both of them adults, not some judge or some important person, but just normal people like you and me."

The girls exchanged looks, but didn't say anything. Cleo's father didn't notice. _We're not exactly normal anymore… _Cleo thought sadly. _We haven't been for a while._

"Anyway," her father continued, "the killer leaves behind two things, a white feather and-" he swallowed, "You're not going to like this."

"What?" Bella asked against her better judgement. Curiosity was getting the better of her. "It can't be that bad."

"This one is," he replied grimly, "He leaves the word 'JUSTICE' on their bodies by _carving_ it into their _skin_."

Cleo and Bella immediately covered their mouths, both of them looking like they were about to throw up. Rikki simply looked disgusted.

"What kind of person- no, _monster_ does that kind of thing?" she demanded of thin air, "And who does that to not one, but _three_ innocent people?"

Cleo's father shook his head, "There are some people in the world that are just born that way, just to be killers."

* * *

"We have to go _now_,"

"Alright, Alright. Just give me a second," I muttered impatiently, "Lemme get some rope or something…" _Terra, sometimes you're a little too serious… But then, I guess this is really important. Amaterasu wouldn't send us here for some trivial matter, but who knows what that Goddess is thinking?_

"We don't need that," Terra sighed and put her hands on her hips, "You know we don't."

"I know," I replied softly as I searched through one of the many boxes that we had brought with us to the apartment that we had taken up residence in. Luckily, or unfortunately for us, Terra's family, who apparently had enough money to have several vacation homes around the world, allowed us to use this one while we were here, which just _happened_ to be close to an island that had all three types of magic surrounding it. _Just leave it to Terra's family to take care of the more trivial stuff for us… _I didn't really like her family, and for a good reason. "But if somebody stops us for whatever reason, at least we'll have some sort of excuse."

Terra sighed again. "No one's gonna be out there in the middle of the night! We already have a boat to take us there, thanks to my parents. It's not like we have to go rent one. Now let's _go_!"

I sighed with exasperation and stood up, glaring at her. "Fine, but if we're seen, I'm blaming you."

"Fi-" She started, but stopped when we both heard my phone ringing from the kitchen.

_Wonder who's calling me at this time of night? _I glanced at Terra before walking over to the kitchen table, where my phone was. I had just gotten it recently, a Blackberry Curve, once again courtesy of Terra's family. Everyone back at Astralis Caelum insisted that I got one, so that we could communicate with each other if any of us were on Earth. I picked it up. "Hello?"

_"Tifa? It's me, Triggerz."_

"Triggerz!" I almost leapt for joy, "What are you doing back here!? And how did you find me?"

_"Um. Amaterasu gave me your number."_

"WHAT!?!?" I shouted, forgetting I was in an apartment in Australia and not in a room in Freya's castle in Astralis Caelum.

"Shh!" Terra whispered warningly, "Do you want to wake up half of Australia?"

"Sorry," I whispered back sheepishly. I went back to Triggerz. "Sorry about that."

_"It's okay. You know Amaterasu knows just about anything about us. Anyway, she sent me, Bella, Sin, Death, and Rainelle to Ireland to investigate something."_

"Investigate what?" For some reason, my heart started to race. _Does this have something to do with us? _I hoped that wasn't the case.

_"I don't know. She didn't tell us a lot. All she told us was that there was a source of magic there and we need to find and protect it from anyone, but she didn't tell us specifically where it was in Ireland."_

"That's what she told us!" _Okay, this doesn't sound good… _"Except that she told us to go to Australia!"

_"Yeah, she told us."_

I was starting to feel really annoyed at Amaterasu. _I've known her for three years and she still doesn't trust me? I still wonder why she made me the Leader of the Guardians… _"Go on."

_"Have any luck finding the source?"_

"Yeah, actually, we have," I glanced at Terra again: she looked impatient, but she knew this was important. "But there's a little problem."

_"What's wrong?"_

"Today, we met these three girls, and they had _Decritia _and _Ferena _around them."

_"What!? How can that-"_

"I don't know," I shook my head, "All I know is that they're hiding something, and I think they know about the source and I think they somehow got their magic from it. Terra and I are on our way to investigate this island that they told us about. We have a hunch that the source could be there."

_"You better hurry and find out. If they know about it, you have to find a way to keep them quiet. Anyway, we're not having much luck here, so here's hoping that you find something."_

"Thanks a lot,"

_"You're welcome. But I gotta go. Sin and I are going to some sea cave to see if there's anything there. Bye." _

"Alright. Bye," I hung up, put the Blackberry back on the table, and turned to Terra, "Alright, let's go."

"What's Triggerz doing here?" she asked, looking faintly puzzled as she walked to the door, wrenched it open, and walked out onto the landing.

"I'll explain on our way to that island," I said tersely as I followed her, "And you're not going to like it."


	4. Chapter 3: A Magical Memory

"You have got to be kidding me."

I sighed. "I know right? Sometimes I still wonder why Amaterasu chose us." We had just arrived at the marina, looking for our boat. _For Freya's sake, why is it every time we have to do something important, it has to be done in the middle of the night? We've only been here for like, two, three days? I haven't slept much since we got here, and this only makes it even worse…_"And where's our damn boat?" There were at least a couple hundred boats in this marina, and there was probably even more. Sailboats, yachts, dinghies, fishing boats, both commercial and private, and speedboats were scattered all over the place. "Any of these could be ours…"

"You sure are patient," Terra rolled her eyes, "It's the one over there." She pointed to her left at a huge, silver yacht that had the words SILVER KNIGHT painted on its side in black, big, block letters.

My jaw dropped. "That's…" I couldn't find my voice. You had to give some credit to the Lockmoon family for being one of the richest families in the entire U.S., but this was just insane.

"Yep, it's mine," Terra said casually. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the keys, and dangled them in front of me. "It's ours for tonight. Usually, we have a couple of people to drive it for us, but not today. C'mon." She started walking off toward it.

"D-Do your parents know about us using it today?" I asked her quickly, as I followed her to her yacht.

"They will," she replied without looking at me, "There's a ship's log, so we have to sign in or something like that. Anyway, it's not like we're doing something illegal. We're just going out to explore an island."

_Yeah, but still…. The full moon's out, which means visibility is great, but it also amplifies magic… So whatever the source is, it might be even more dangerous than it usually is. _I had way too many experiences with uncontrollable magic back at Astralis Caelum…

_"Hey, Tifa!" I hear Renée call my name from the grounds below the battlements of the massive white, stone walls surrounding the city of Valkyrie. She looked extremely excited about something even though her usually neat hair looked like a bird's nest, tangled and even damaged near the ends, which was totally unlike herself. Her face was completely covered in dirt, but the way she was smiling, you wouldn't have noticed. _

_ "Hm?" I looked down about 100 feet at her. From here, a normal human would only a small speck, but due to me being a Guardian, I could see almost every single detail just the same as if she was right next to me. "What's up? What happened-"_

_ "I learned a new spell!" she yelled up to me excitedly, "Watch this!" A fiery red magic circle appeared behind her, faintly at first, but then blazed into life in a few_

_seconds._

_**A Ferena spell? Oh crap! **__"Renée!" I screamed, "Don't do-" I dropped down to the cold, hard, stone floor of the battlements, expecting some sort of raging storm of fire or something like that._

_ "ABRACADABRA!" _

_ Nothing happened. "Renée…__**" **__I growled as I slowly stood back up, "I'm-"_

_ "Wait!" she screamed at me, her face suddenly twisting into a mask of fear "Get back d-"_

_**KA-BOOM!**_

"Tifa!"

I jerked out of my reverie. "W-What?" I suddenly realized I was still on the dock while Terra was already on her yacht.

She sighed impatiently as she walked over to the yacht's railing. "Are you waiting for Brynhildr to drop down from the sky or what? Get on!" She walked off, probably going to start the boat. "Slide the platform in once you get on!"

"Sorry about that…" I called after her as I ran up the dock and onto the yacht, doing what Terra told me to do. _This is her boat after all… Which makes her Captain, I guess. _The boat abruptly started with a low rumble and I heard a somewhat loud clanking sounds coming from the left side of the yacht. _The anchor? _"Are we leaving?" I called over to the doorway where Terra had disappeared.

"What do you think?" Her reply sounded muffled.

I chuckled softly. _You've changed so much since we became Guardians… You used to be so emotionless, but now you're more like Bella. _I smiled at the thought of the feisty, smooth-talking Guardian of Stars. _I wonder how she and the others are doing on their mission? _I walked around Terra's yacht for a few minutes. _I haven't been on a boat like this before… In fact, the last time I was even on a boat was like what? A year ago? _I walked over to the edge of the yacht and leaned over on the railing, staring at the black seawater gently hit the side of the _Silver Knight. _

"Ok!" I hear Terra's muffled voice call from somewhere inside the yacht. "I think I've got this under control…"

_You think? _I feel the _Silver Knight_ rumble a little louder as it slowly moved away from the dock. I put my head on the railing and glanced up at the sky: the full moon glowed brightly in the clear skies above. _This better lead to something…_

"Hey, you want to come and see what's inside?" Terra called out to me. "It's pretty nice in here…"

"In a bit," I replied as I lifted my head, "I just wanna be out here for a few more minutes." I put my head back down and closed my eyes. _I have a feeling this is going to be a long night…_

_ The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion: the entire world became a massive, fiery explosion as red, blue, and orange beams of energy and light shot out from the rune behind Renée and disappeared into the ground a few meters from the city gates and exploded all within the space of a second. The explosion was small at first, but then suddenly expanded outward until I saw it coming right at my face. __**Oh sh- **__I threw up my arms in a useless defense and looked away, expecting the explosion to consume me, but… I didn't feel a thing. I slowly lowered my arms and looked back. __**What the-? **_

__ _ The explosion hung a few inches from my face, its extreme heat making me sweat, but it just- just __**stayed**__ there, floating there like a fiery cloud. I could see blue streaks of energy swirling around it, but it could go no further._

_ "Please," I whipped around and saw the Goddess Freya walk calmly toward me, "If you are going to experiment with your magic, do not do it in front of the walls of this city."_

_"Freya? Y-You did this?" I motioned to the semi-frozen explosion behind me._

_ "Yes."_

_ "H-How?" I was awed beyond belief._

_ "Such is the power of an Entity," she replied softly, "Come, I will show you more." She raised her right hand, starting with an open hand and then slowly clenching it into a fist. "There is always danger lurking around, even within my beloved city," she murmured as her blue-green eyes were fixed on the fiery, magical explosion, "Whenever some menace befalls you, it may seem to be akin to a Crisis, but if you have command of the flow of magic…" She motioned for me to turn around and look. I quickly obeyed and stared at the massive sphere of energy. "You can transform it into something of little consequence," she finished, still concentrated on the task at hand, "Observe."_

_ Slowly but surely, the explosion started to shrink. The blue streaks vanished as the sphere grew smaller and smaller until it couldn't be seen from the battlements, so I leaned back over the stone railing, watching it grow even smaller, until it disappeared into the ground from where it came. The only thing left was the ginormous hole in the ground that it made. The air still smelled of smoke and magic, however. On the other hand, I was glad to see Renée completely unhurt by the spell, besides her hair looking even more frazzled and her face even dirtier than it was mere minutes ago. Her face showed a mix of sheepishness and shock as she looked up at Freya and me._

_ "Sorry!" she called, sounding quite abashed._

_ At that moment, I didn't know what to do or what to say. All I could do was laugh. It started off as a chuckle, but soon became a song of mirth. I almost completely forgot I was in the presence of an Entity. I was trying to calm down before I embarrassed myself, but to my surprise, Freya started to laugh._


End file.
